Learning to 'Let Go': How to Stop Being Scared of Giving Up Control

Do people tell you to ‘just let it go’?

Do they tell you to ‘get over it’?

Tell you it’s not worth it and forget about it?

The whole ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ thing?

Do you struggle to do that? I know I do.

I’m an analytical and critical soul, who wants everything to be perfect and run smoothly and go to plan – particularly MY plan. I make a lot of lists. I think things through in great detail. I imagine how things will turn out. The small things matter to me.

On occasion, I have been called a ‘control freak’. Sometimes I’m okay with that and sometimes I’m not. The times I am not is because it relates to something that I am sensitive about; something that matters a lot to me. And in those moments I can become defensive. My defensiveness means I am feeling insecure and trying to control something that I am worried might not work out or meet my expectations (or someone else's), or is something I could have done differently.

We want control because we feel something is out of control. We don’t feel we have power in a given situation – that power being the ability to change or influence a situation, event, or project. We are seeking a particular outcome and putting ourselves under pressure to achieve it. It frustrates us, and it can cause a great deal of anxiety and stress, which we then take out on those around us by being defensive or unapproachable.

"The more you try to control something, the more it controls you. Free yourself and let things take their own natural course." – Leon Brown

But we must remember, the only thing we can control is ourselves. We can’t control how others will respond, what they will choose to do, or what they will think. We can’t control what will happen after our participation. We can only do our part and then release it.

In my post How to Reduce your Expectations to Reduce Anxiety, I discuss how to stop anticipating an outcome; how to stop having an expectation of how something will turn out.  Learning to ‘let go’ requires the same processes. We can only take responsibility for what is within our control. The rest we have to let go of, including the outcome.

Some call it ‘surrendering to the outcome’, and that is what we need to do. But the word ‘surrender’ to me indicates defeat or giving in, whereas I see 'letting go' as the opposite. It is rising above our anxieties and need for control; it is being sure we have done all we can, content with our input, and knowing it is enough.  Letting go means you made a choice to release it. 

“Sometimes letting go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” Eckhart Tolle

When we become sure of ourselves and our efforts, the fear we have about not being in control, or letting ourselves and others down, disappears. Letting go allows us to feel liberated and derive pleasure from any and all outcomes.

So if you find yourself frustrated and feeling like you are losing control, or out of control, ask yourself:
What is it I am seeking from this situation or event?
What is it I am trying to control?
What outcome am I looking for?
Why does it matter so much to me?

And then ask yourself:
Am I happy with my part in it?
Can I change it, or improve it?

Look at what you are in control of, what power you do have, and reassure yourself you have done all you can. Then you can take the pressure off and let go of your frustrations, expectations and desire for a particular outcome.And often you will find the outcome is much better - because you hadn't expected it.

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” - Joseph Campbell

Kill Justification: How to Stop Feeling You Have to Explain Yourself

Do you find yourself explaining your actions or feelings to others?

Do you feel that you are required to do so?

Do you feel that your answer won’t be accepted unless you do – or that YOU won’t be accepted unless you do?

Justifying our feelings or actions is an indication that we feel insecure about who we are. It is a form of seeking external approval. It comes from a fear that our actions won’t be approved of, or accepted – as though we feel we have to convince others of their validity, and on some level, of our own validity.

When we justify ourselves to others we give away our personal power. We give away our choice about how we feel or think, believing that unless someone else approves, we can’t either.

I would often find myself going into long drawn out explanations about why I did something, especially if I wasn’t sure if the person I was talking to would approve of it. It might be over something trivial, like a musician I liked, books I liked, things I liked doing, or something more in depth, like why I parented the way I did, why I had becomes friends with someone – always I felt I had to justify myself.

My mother always worked on the assumption that because I was her daughter I had to like everything she did, and if I didn’t she would create an argument about it. She would consider it a negation of her if I didn’t, and take it as a personal sleight and get upset. And the upset thus taught me that it was easier to pretend I did like what she wanted me to, to please her and keep the peace.

Unfortunately this meant I learnt a bad habit early on: to either pretend I liked something to please others, or go into detailed reasons why I liked it to try and validate it and gain approval. Sadly though, this resulted in me either not knowing what I really liked, or humiliating myself by over explaining, and getting a sense that it put the other person off, creating an awkward, tense situation. Often I would walk away feeling like I had said too much, and feel bad about myself.

Stop letting people that do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions. – Will Smith

This pattern of behaviour was highlighted to me when I realised I didn’t behave this way around everyone. There were some people I could be around who I expressed myself clearly with, defined my likes and dislikes, and who I felt accepted by, because they didn’t expect anything from me.

It was brought to my attention when I visited a friend with an ex-boyfriend. My relationship with this ex-boyfriend wasn’t good. I was always on tender hooks, unsure he was happy with me. I felt I had to live up to an image he had of me. He would often argue with me about my opinions and view. After we visited my friend he commented how relaxed I had been in their company, confident and happy, and he asked why I wasn’t that way with him anymore.

I realised my friend had never expected or wanted me to be anyone else; I could discuss my tastes and opinions with them, and they wouldn’t argue with them – whether they agreed with them or not. They respected me, and my thoughts and feelings, so I could be myself with them.

  

And if there were people that I had to justify or explain myself to then I had to move away from them, because they weren’t helping me, they were taking something away from me. They were the wrong people, possibly toxic people.

Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of – it’s yours. - Zero Dean

It made me realise that I shouldn’t have to explain myself or defend my choices to anyone. I realised I had a right to feel and think any way I chose, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone. I was worthy, and I didn’t need to justify why.

But doing this is not so easy, so I broke it down into a step by step process.

1)    Listen to yourself – feel your feelings about things, and acknowledge them;

2)    Be honest with yourself – don’t alter anything to suit others. Being different is okay;

3)    Follow your heart when you make decisions by trusting yourself – and you do that by doing the first step;

4)    Believe in yourself - know that you are a good person;

5)    Be confident in your feelings and choices, then you won’t need to seek someone else to.

Be who you are. Think the way you do. Be who you are.

You are worthy, you don’t need to justify why!

Finding the Balance: How to Avoid Living in Extremes

Do you find your mood swings between happy and sad with nothing in between?

Do you have to be walking on sunshine to feel you had a good day?

Or did the world fall out from under your feet if it didn’t go so well?

We are currently in a time of ‘urgent living’. Everyone seems to be in a rush, and everything has to happen today! Now! This minute!

Within that rush is an expectation, one of seeing our dreams materialising and all our hard work paying off, or getting what we believe we want/deserve. But if it doesn’t happen – if that moment doesn’t bring a rush of joy or success, we fall back in despair, sometimes so deep we struggle to recover.

We are either really happy or inconsolably sad. I call this living in extremes.

“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go, and knowing when to do which of the two.” - Rumi

Some people believe that if they are not happy all the time there is something wrong with them – or in their relationship, friendships, job; that if things aren’t working out as they had expected they are doing something wrong, or failing in some way. They don’t believe it is okay to have an ‘off’ day and find life a struggle. They have to talk about being happy ALL the time and only say and do positive things – nothing negative will be tolerated.

This can lead to feelings of anxiety and deep sadness – one they daren’t speak about, otherwise it risks falling into a depressed way of thinking.

It is an ‘all or nothing’ perspective – ‘I’m either happy or I’m sad’.

But the trick to riding the pendulum of life is not to let it swing too far in either direction. You have to find the balance.

“Balance is the key to everything. What we do, think, say, eat, feel, they all require awareness, and through this awareness we can grow.” – Koi Fresco

You have to accept that some days you might not wake up feeling full of energy, or looking forward to the day. And during those times it’s okay to feel sad or overwhelmed and disappointed with life. The trick is to not hold onto it and believe that it will be like that forever.

I was raised by a mother who wallowed in a negative mindset. If things didn’t go her way then there was something wrong and someone to blame. She was never satisfied with what she had in any given moment. She was always looking for something else, something better, and she had high expectations.

I unwittingly took on this mindset, creating drama whenever my life felt dull, usually of a self-destructive, negative kind: pushing people away, running away, starting over and again and again, each time believing I would find the happiness I so desperately believed was out there. It took me a long time to realise that it was only through stable living and finding a calm within that it would appear – and that it already resided within me.

“True happiness resides within you. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way that you think.” - Wayne Dyer

A friend of mine asked me recently why it was that everyone around her seemed so happy all the time when she wasn’t. She expressed how hard it was to keep up the pretence that she was happy too, just to fit in. But I reminded her that it was an illusion and that it was unlikely they were happy all the time. It was an assumption she was making that reflected her own feelings of anxiety about not feeling happy all the time. She believed she ‘should’ be happy all the time, and that there was nothing to complain about, yet inside she didn’t feel it.

Many of us do this. I have often looked at others and their lives and felt envy, wondering how they were so content and happy. Asking myself, how have they achieved that; what am I doing wrong?  But in reality I was projecting the thought that others were happier than me to sustain the cycle of misery and feelings of failure I was experiencing. When I spoke to those people I found their lives were not as perfect as I had thought – and some of those people felt the same way I did.

“Comparison is the thief of Joy.” – Teddy Roosevelt

These feelings can keep us disconnected from each other, causing us to stand back and keep our distance, even withdraw from social interaction. But separation causes pain; it is only through connection we can feel love and a sense of belonging and contentment.

To find balance we need to connect to those around us, which in turn will enable us to gauge what is real. If we speak our feelings out loud and be honest about them, and share them, we can stop seeking unattainable highs through self-imagined ideals of other people’s lives.

By reducing expectations – both from ourselves as from others – we can start living in the moment, whilst allowing ourselves the ‘bad days’ and not pushing ourselves to some unrealistic, insincere emotion.

If we wake up one morning not feeling either happy or sad, we don’t have to push ourselves to feel any particular way. We can let the day unfold, accept who we are on that day and in that moment, without any demands, and be gentle with ourselves if things don’t go our way.

Once we take the pressure off we allow ourselves to live more balanced lives, and avoid dwelling in the extremes.  

The Art of Being Present: How to Stop Worrying about Then or When

Do you find yourself worrying about things that you did in the past?

Do you worry about how your life is going to be in the future?

Does it distract you from what you are doing now, today?

In the busy lives we’ve created for ourselves it has become an art to remain present and live in the moment. To truly greet each day and only think about what is happening on that day, as well as being open to everyone and everything around us.

We spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the future and wallowing in the past – or even chastising ourselves about the past and fantasising about the future! And when we do this, it can put us in an overwhelmed or anxious state, making it harder to bring ourselves back to the present moment.  

By being distracted by either the past or the future, we rob ourselves of time in the here and now. We wish our lives away quite literally by thinking over the past and wishing we could change it, or what we want from our imagined future. And when we do this, we miss what is right in front of us: the people, the place, and the shared experience.

“The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all other moment.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

For me personally, I realised that whenever I found myself in a situation I was not enjoying, or wasn’t what I hoped for or expected, I would drift off, disassociating myself from the present life and living in a fantasy one inside my head. I would disconnect from the present moment entirely.

This is a form of escapism. When I was young it enabled me to survive a painful childhood, but once grown up I continued this pattern of behaviour resulting in me feeling like I was standing on the outside of my life, desperately wanting to be a part of it, but believing that I didn’t belong, which only perpetuated the cycle of disconnection.

I didn’t know how to be present, how to step into the life around me and find it satisfying and rewarding. But over the course of several years in therapy I started to work it out; I started to understand how I could change my way of thinking and start engaging in my own life.

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” – Abraham Maslow

These are the things I started doing:

1) Reducing Expectations

I talked in a previous post about how reducing expectations can enable us to enjoy events, and social interactions better. It also applies to the present moment. By not expecting or wanting a different outcome, and not fearing a repetition of the past, we can experience the here and now as it is, without any preconceived ideas, embracing the moments as they unfold.

2) Feeling Appreciation

I started a habit of appreciation. Some call this ‘living in gratitude’ and connect it to following religious faith, but it has no religious connotations for me, it is simply seeing the things I have around me, right there in that moment, on that day, and enjoying them and recognising how much I have in my life to be happy about.

3) Active Listening

This is the act of being present with people. It requires making eye contact, and taking the time to actually hear what someone else is saying. Registering it both physically and verbally, and engaging in a conversation, without being distracted either by other things, or other thoughts. Giving yourself over fully in that moment to the interaction you are having with another. Besides my own post about it this article on Changing Minds also explains how to go about it in more detail. 

4) Recognising the Power of Choice

I recognised I had a choice, both about how I chose to look at things, and in what I chose to do about them – even if that meant only changing my reaction rather than a physical action. I decided I was not a victim of my past, I was here now, and I could take steps to achieve the things I wanted, no matter how small, today. I could focus everyday on what I could do in that moment to bring about my future desires.

All of these things help me remain present. I still struggle with it some days, when I become overwhelmed by all the things I have to do to take care of my family, and all the things I want to achieve for myself. But I remind myself I don’t have to do it all today. I bring myself back to the day by noticing something as small as a flower in the garden, or a bird in a tree, or a cloud in the sky, and taking the time to see it, smell it, hear it, and feel that day, be in that moment, and not anywhere else in my mind.

“In the present, when we allow ourselves to fully live there, we are restored, made wiser, made deeper and happier.”- Marianne Williamson

Overcoming Overwhelm: Learning how to do it all, one thing at a time

Do you have days where you struggle to keep your mind on the task at hand?

Are you always thinking about the next thing you have to do and feeling anxious about it?

Do you feel exhausted at the end of the day but feel you haven’t done anything?

Feeling overwhelmed is common in today’s world. We live busy lives, trying to achieve a lot in a small amount of time. We juggle several things at once, like a job, raising a family, managing a home, and all that that entails.

Being overwhelmed often shows up in a physical form under the header of Stress. It manifests to varying degrees in a number of symptoms, such as anxiety, anger, frustration, insomnia, even depression.

It is particularly prevalent in those of us with busy or ‘noisy’ minds, who struggle to stop thinking about all the things we feel must get done today! Or who have overactive imaginations that insist on playing out all the ‘what if’ scenarios.

“There is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as your own mind.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

When I moved to a foreign country to be with my husband, I suffered insomnia every night for six months prior to the move date. I would wake up at 3am and not be able to get back to sleep. Once my mind was awake and thinking about what was ahead of me, I couldn’t get it to rest again. The only thing I could do was get up, have a drink of water and sit and watch telly until I felt tired enough to fall asleep again. I was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of living in a foreign language and culture, and wondering how I would survive there, as well as being a city girl moving to a village. And after moving, the struggles and frustrations I went through trying to settle here continued to overwhelm me, despite trying to appear happy and satisfying everyone’s expectations of me – including my own.

Overwhelm can be a reaction to feelings that we aren’t able to express properly, either because we don’t have the time, or because we don’t want to feel them. If we don’t give ourselves proper time to process something, or we take on more than we are capable of we can become overwhelmed. We continue pushing ourselves to do more, to be more, and tell ourselves we are fine, when often we aren’t.

For me it resulted in a breakdown. My inability to express myself and share my feelings without fear of upsetting or disappointing those around me, coupled with feeling completely unsupported, meant I became lost in a negative spiral of thoughts and emotions which eventually shut me down. I felt powerless to change my feelings or my situation, and disappeared into a black hole in my head.

Fortunately though, I had enough clarity to seek help in the form of a therapist.

Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place. – Robin Lee

I learnt to deal with one thing at a time, rather than tackle everything together. I learnt how to break my feelings down and look at them separately, identifying those that I needed to work with more than others.

I learnt to not look too far ahead and focus on the short term instead, to look at what I could do today, or this year, and deal with situations as they arose, rather than try and anticipate them all in advance.

I learnt how I could look at the things I struggled with differently, from a new perspective, and find a way that would help me accept and see that I still had power in the form of choices. And step by step I managed to start moving forward again, reassessing my priorities and focusing on one thing at a time, one feeling at a time, and one task at a time.

I slowed everything down.

I learnt to stop focusing so much on the big picture, and potential future outcome, and focus on the here and now.

“The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” – Thich Naht Hanh

I still have times that I find myself overwhelmed, and in those moments I ask myself what things I want to achieve today. I prioritise them, often by writing a list with the most important thing first. Then I strike everything below the top one and focus on that. I set aside specific time for it rather than try and squash it in between everything else. And when I focus on that one step I reduce the anxiety, and in turn the feeling of being overwhelmed. And often I then feel like I have achieved something and taken a step forward.  

“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” – Timber Hawkeye

Do you experience overwhelm? How do you deal with it, what works for you? I’d love to hear.